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One billion people in the world live in extreme poverty. "Extreme poverty" is defined as living on less than $1 per day. Not enough to provide for the food, clothing. fresh water and medicine to survive. As a result, every 3 seconds, extreme poverty takes another life.

Did You Know?

* About one billion people, one-sixth of the world's population, live on less than $1 per day.
* The U.S. currently spends $450 billion on its military, but only about $16 billion in official development assistance.
* In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 15 of every 100 children die before the age of five. In western Kenya, fertilizer costs more than twice what it costs in France or the U.S. Ethiopia is so deforested that rural households cannot use manure as fertilizer because they need it as cooking fuel.
* The rich countries have repeatedly promised to give $210 billion (0.7% of their incomes) in official development assistance, but only give $69 billion.
* Because of HIV/AIDS, life expectancy in crisis countries like Botswana has dropped to below 40 years.
* Millions of people, mostly children, die from malaria every year. For about $3 billion from the rich world, 2 million malaria deaths could be averted.
* $25 billion a year would be enough to deliver life-saving health services to the low-income countries. The U.S. has recently given $200 billion per year in tax cuts.
* Preliminary estimates show that the Millennium Development Goals can be met if foreign aid were increased by $75 billion per year, well within the promise of 0.7%.

What can we do?

All it takes to end extreme poverty is for the rich nations of the world to contribute .7% of GDP to help - thats 7 cents of every 100 dollars. Guess what? They all agreed to do this. But they haven't yet lived up to it.

The United States contributes the least, at .13% ($16 billion) when it should be contributing $75 billion.